Abstract

This study examines Nietzsche's polemics on the concepts of guilt and punishment by analyzing how these concepts have operated in religion, morality, psychology, and within secular institutions. It is demonstrated that what Nietzsche discerns is that the concepts of guilt and punishment have acted, and continue to act, in a disruptive and humanly debilitating manner in religion. Furthermore, it is shown that the manner in which guilt and punishment act in morality, human psychology, and within social institutions is dialectically related to the manner in which these concepts act in religion; they have similar effects. ;In general, according to Nietzsche, the Christian concept of God has maintained its influence through the power of Christian values, which continue to be internalized by modern man. This study specifically examines the way in which the Christian concepts of guilt and punishment have come into play in human psychology. According to Nietzsche, modern man has internalized the logic of the procedures used by the Christian God in his administration of divine justice. Also, Nietzsche proposes that these internalized concepts of guilt and punishment, as well as their causal relationships, recently have become "externalized" and "objectified" in certain modern social institutions. As such, they have become a powerful social, psychological, and political force because they are now embodied in the administration of the law in western judicial and legislative institutions. ;First, this study presents Nietzsche's genealogy and history of the concepts of guilt and punishment. Then, by examining how the concepts of guilt and punishment are interpreted and used in the American criminal justice system , this study demonstrates that the historical religious and moral understanding of these concepts have become integrated into the administration of American law. The aim of this study is to examine the validity of Nietzsche's hypothesis that the seminal influences on the modern interpretation of the concepts of guilt and punishment in modern criminal jurisprudence are religious ones. This study seeks to demonstrate that this hypothesis is valid in the case of American criminal jurisprudence. ;It is my contention that such democratic ideals as "legal duty," "equal rights," "criminal responsibility," "justice," "the law," "guilt," and "punishment" are all rooted in the same assumptions integral to the Christian God's administration of divine justice. Since it is shown here that Nietzsche's polemics discredit the Christian assumptions, it is proposed that his polemics thereby provide a stern challenge to the values and ideals which give structure to the legal philosophy underlying the American criminal justice system